by Jackie Ivie
“Only that Morgan has remembered where four lusty lasses reside. They happen to cook as well as, if not better than, my own lasses here. The MacPhee ladies have a dearth of menfolk to till their soil, provide their game and warm their beds. I’ve decided to gift them with your indenture for the year. Write that last down, Martin.”
They looked stunned for a moment. Then, they started grinning, too.
“Don’t think it isn’t punishment, lads. I sincerely doubt, once you meet the MacPhee lasses and begin your service, that you’ll be walking anytime soon. In fact, I guarantee it. Martin?”
“Aye?”
“You know the MacPhees?”
“Everyone knows the lasses.” He was grinning, too.
“See that our friends, Collin and Seth here, reach them safely, and then return to me. I’ll be near Chidester’s Quarry. You know the spot?”
“Aye,” he replied again.
“Get walking, then. ’Tis a three day walk, maybe four. Morgan? Come with me.”
He strode through the center of them, picked up the entwined dirks and kept walking, Morgan at his heels. When they were at his tent, he opened the flap and gestured with his head for her to enter.
As soon as the flap settled, the camp started making sound again. Morgan heard it through the weave of his tent material.
“Have you no idea of your foolishness?” He was pulling her dirks from the handles of the other ones, and handing them to her, and he wasn’t being gentle. His arms were rippling with every movement, as were his shoulders and his chest, and....
Morgan very nearly groaned as she watched, subconsciously receiving the dirks he held to her. She didn’t even blink.
“Now, there’s no stopping them. Doona’ you ever think of missing?”
“Missing?” she echoed, taking the last dirk and holding it. “Missing?”
“Aye, missing. Is it such a foreign idea?”
“What should I aim for, then?”
He rolled his head upward, then back. “You should na’ aim for anything. You should miss.”
“But I’ve never thrown without an aim! I may send a knife flying into a vital part if I’m not aiming.”
“Pick a stone behind, then. Pick a blade of grass, pick a spot of sunlight on the damned dirt!”
Morgan was still looking at him, unblinking. “My talent is given to me from God,” she whispered. “I dinna’ ask for it, I doona’ deserve it, I certainly doona’ enjoy it, but it’s a God-given thing. I canna’ turn away from that.”
“God does na’ give gifts of death.”
“I’ve na’ killed anyone...yet,” she replied.
“That’s just it. Yet. You’re a killing machine, without a bit of remorse. It’s inhuman, and it’s frightening. It’s also turning you into a demigod everywhere we go. The lads hate you for it. The lasses swoon over you. I don’t even know what to make of you.”
His voice was calling to every bit of her that was female, and Morgan fought it before she was losing. She should have known she’d lose. “I feel remorse,” she whispered.
He looked up at that. Morgan’s eyes were awash with tears and she watched him stare. She didn’t dare blink. Something was passing between them too, and her eyes widened when she felt it.
“You’ll make your bed in here. With me. It’s not up for argument, either.”
He was angrier than before, if the clipped tone of his words were any indication.
“I refuse,” she answered.
“It’s not open for refusal. I canna’ keep you safe, and I will na’ wake to find your throat slit.”
“I can protect myself,” she answered, blinking the tears into existence down her cheeks.
“No, you canna’. You sleep too deeply. And with too many dreams, if your tossing is any indication.”
She raised her hands up and slashed them across her face, to wipe the moisture away. “I doona’,” she finally answered. Then, she lowered her arms.
“I’ve watched you.”
He watched me? she wondered, catching a breath and holding it so tightly, that it burned.
“When I canna’ sleep, I like to stare into a fire. You sleep close enough to it, you should be burned. But you’re not, are you, Morgan, of no-clan and no-name? You’re never burned. Only those about you are.”
“No one is ever about me,” she replied.
“That’s probably true. You would na’ let them. They’re burned, none-the-less. Trust me.”
Morgan frowned. He wasn’t making sense. “I canna’ sleep here, even if you order it so.”
“You’ll na’ argue further, or I’ll tie you to my bed. Will your swooning group of followers appreciate that, you think?”
“I have no followers,” Morgan protested.
“You give the word, there’s not a lass out there that wouldn’t follow you. Anywhere. Anytime. Most of my lads, too. No followers, he says, like it’s not a God-given fact.” He wasn’t looking at her, he was studying his fingernails. Then, he was lifting each hand to look at it as if it were his entire chore for the day. Morgan watched him. “Were I as gifted with an aim as you are, I’d have legions of followers, and all aiming for the heart of every Sassenach bastard on the face of the earth. But, since I am na’....” He stopped and sighed, “I must make do with the use of yours.”
“I still will na’ bed in here with you.”
“Why do you argue, when I’ve said it’s not open for such? I’ll brook no argument, and I’ll use brute strength to make it so. Don’t force it. Neither of us will enjoy it.”
“But I sleep on the ground. In the open. I am used to that. A tent is too fine for the likes of me.”
“There’s ground beneath the rugs. You can have the floor. I’d as lief give you your freedom as gift you with my cot. What do you take me for, a complete fool?”
“Nay,” she replied. “You are my master, but a fool? Nay.”
“You’re mistaken, lad, now that I think on it.” He had ceased staring at his hands and put every bit of that midnight-blue gaze on her. Morgan wasn’t prepared for it, and probably showed it. “I’m the basest fool. I only hope I don’t get worse burned. There’s a hell for what I desire and need right now. You ken?”
Morgan squinted her eyes before lifting her shoulders. She hadn’t the smallest notion what he was talking of. It probably showed. “May I leave now? I’ve a hide to scrape, and a boar to prepare for your next fair.”
“Aye. Prepare it nice and sweet, and then weaken it to the point of no return. That’s what I like about you, Morgan lad. You truss up your victims and get them ready for slaughter, and they don’t even know it’s happening.”
“I don’t think I ken to you,” she said.
“Thank God,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking, too. About what you said.”
Morgan waited. She’d said so much, it could be anything.
“I do have too many servants already, and no taste for correcting them and making them obey. We’ll ask for something different this time.”
“You canna’,” she replied.
“Why na?”
“There is nothing that will guarantee you fealty like taking their offspring. You said it yourself, and it’s true. I’ve watched. Everything you said is true.”
“What should I do, then?”
Morgan shrugged. “You’ve brothers and parents? Gift some servants to them. You’ll need to make certain of their loyalty a-fore that, though.”
“My brothers are all loyal!”
Morgan shoved out the amusement on one huff of air. “Make certain of the servant’s loyalty, na’ your brothers’.”
“We could use more cloth, though. And more flour.”
“Flowers? Whatever for?” Morgan asked, totally mystified.
“Not flowers, flour. Wheat flour. What do you ken the bread we eat is made from? Air?”
“Trade the boar for it, like last time.”
“You’ve an answer to everything, don’t you, Morgan lad?”
“Your problems are small, and therefore easily solved,” she answered.
He took a step toward her and sent those midnight-blue eyes boring into her. Morgan was afraid to breathe.
“If only that were true,” he whispered and took another step toward her.
Morgan began backing up. Then, she was subconsciously holding the finger-filled dirks out. He didn’t so much as glance that way. He didn’t move his gaze from hers.
“You’ve a taste of the forbidden about you, and not one inkling of it.” He was whispering the words so softly, Morgan didn’t think she’d heard them right. She didn’t think she was supposed to hear them, either.
Her eyes were wide, her breath stolen, and her back against a tent pole. She was terrified. He snarled, and spun from her. He reached the other side of his tent in two steps.
“You may go,” he said.
Morgan gulped, then began inching her way to the door flap. The man wasn’t making any sense. He was making every bit of her body sing with something akin to the anticipation she felt whenever a challenge was made, and starting a tremor not unlike the flush of victory when she hit her mark. He was too immense for her.
“You know something else, Morgan lad?”
She stopped at the tent flap.
“You have horrible dreams.”
CHAPTER NINE
What followed were four more of the worst days of Morgan’s life, and even worse nights. It was the same for anyone in Zander FitzHugh’s proximity and it began the morning after she started staying in his tent.
Before the sun had thought of appearing that day, Zander was awakening her, and not by any previous method, either. He simply put the bulk of his foot beneath her ribcage and kicked her right out the door flap. Morgan rolled to her feet, dusting herself off and choking with the surprise and the temperature. Her feile-breacan was askew, too, and he snarled at her over it, before pointing down his arm at her.
“I’ll not listen to your snoring another moment. I’ll find the method for tiring you out! Now, move!”
So saying, he’d shoved her to an open field, and put her through such a rigorous series of exercises and movements that sweat was literally pouring off both of them. He matched her push-up for push-up and when they reached two-hundred, he had her on her feet doing squats and thrusts with either leg from a crouch position. When that didn’t suit him fully, he had them go from knees to feet, back to knees. Then, to feet again, jumping, falling, jumping, falling. Then he had her working with stones. Not small stones, either, large boulders that she was required to lift over her head, hold and then swing. The first one he chose was so heavy, when Morgan went to swing it, she went with it, making Zander even more furious.
He didn’t slacken when she begged a moment to clear her innards. He simply glared at her, waved his hand and gave her exactly to the count of ten to do what needed doing in the bushes.
Then, he was tossing her in the small loch, since she refused to disrobe for him, and while she was swimming with the burden of wet wool and full boots, he was taking every stitch off before diving in himself. Morgan had been out of the water before he broke the surface and wringing out her plaid, then her shirts, and then her braid.
“You have a problem serving me, squire?” he’d snarled, when she ignored him.
Morgan was on her feet and handing him his clothing, piece by piece, and she was doing her absolute best to see none of him when the sky was lightening with yellowish-red light and he had a body made for running her eyes over.
He got angered over that, too, and told her to find a wench to stare at, and Morgan flushed. Then, he was off at a fierce, bone-jarring pace back to camp. His temperament didn’t improve, though. He simply turned it on anyone in his way. He told Sheila to cease putting good oats through the torment of her gruel, he flung one of Amelia’s biscuits to the ground, told her if they were going to be the consistency of stones, they might as well be one, and called his lads together for what turned into a marathon race.
Morgan had more than one cramp to her belly before they reached camp, but she was only one of two to stay with him. The others had long ago ceased the ability to keep pace, and were left to wander in as they might.
Zander put his midnight-blue gaze about camp, told the wenches their laziness wouldn’t be tolerated much longer, grabbed a huge slice of roasting boar meat and yelled for the lass, Heather, to service him in his tent.
Morgan’s eyes were as wide as anyone’s as Heather jumped to her feet and followed him into the tent. She was out moments later, however, and she wasn’t happy about it. No one said a word. Then, Zander tossed open the flap and yelled for Morgan. He hadn’t lost a bit of stridency in his orator voice, either. The entire forest jumped at the sound of her name, not just Morgan.
He sneered at her, told her to cease being an irritant and get her backside to sleep. Otherwise, she’d pay for it with the next day’s exercise. Morgan had just closed her eyes when he had her suspended by her belt and was hauling her out of the tent to dump her on a log in front of everyone.
“Eat something first,” he growled, and stomped back into his enclosure.
He gave her exactly what time it took to put a dirk into the meat and start carving before he was bellowing her name again. Morgan ripped off what she could, and was shoving it into her mouth as she went back into the tent.
The second and third and fourth day had the same pattern to them, although as far as she could tell, he wasn’t even sleeping. He was cursing her, cursing the tent, cursing every lazy Sassenach on the face of Scotland, and drinking heavily. She tried putting her hands over her ears beneath her kilt, but that just seemed to make him angrier when he pulled her awake the second morn and saw her position.
She paid for it with another series of exercise, another brutal run, and then she had to practice swordplay with him until it felt like her arms might fall off, and all that was before the fourth night.
She’d barely been kicked out of his tent for the second time and was rubbing the sore spot on her left buttock, from where she’d landed, when he was out again, bellowing for her to cease her lazing about and follow him. Morgan was on his heels and that made him angry, too. He turned, barked at her for being his shadow, and then cursed her for being so slow to answer his demands.
He wanted Morgan, the horse, saddled, and he was going into the village. He gave Martin less than the count of ten to get it finished, despite Morgan’s assertion that it couldn’t be done.
“When I need your words, I’ll ask for them, Morgan. Time is up, Martin.”
Morgan met Martin’s eye, and his look of empathy, and then she was tossed up onto Morgan, the horse, by a less-than-gentle hand. She bent forward over the saddle with the momentum, and had barely lifted her head back up when Zander planted himself into the saddle in front of her.
“Hold to the saddle or fall off, Morgan lad. We’re late as it is.”
Late for what? she wondered, and then she ceased thinking, as the horse broke into a gallop, rapidly enough to fling her off. She wasn’t holding to the saddle, either; she had both arms wrapped about Zander, with her hands linked together at his belly. He had more muscles in his stomach that any other she’d ever seen, and they felt even more rigid and strong beneath the skin of her forearms and wrists. Morgan put her cheek against his back and tried to ignore how it felt.
He had her arms pried off as they approached the torch-bedecked village, and he flung them from him as if they were filthy. Morgan hung her head then, but knew enough to cling to his saddle. He walked his horse behind the crofts and looped back to the end of a street. Then he took them down an offal-filled alleyway to a dark, unwelcoming croft.
He was off the horse and pulling her with him by her collar, and marching around to the door before Morgan had a chance to find the ground. She ran alongside him in a tip-toe sort of fashion until they reached the stoop and he let her down a fraction. Then, he lifted his fist, and she saw that it was white-knuckled and sh
aking. He sucked in a breath and knocked with a quiet, soft touch.
“Who is it?”
The melodious voice belonged to a woman so closely resembling Morgan’s kin, the hag, that she gasped. The woman had breasts that were ripe and falling over the top of her dress to the point the pink part surrounding her nipples was showing. She’d tied her belt high on her ribcage to get the effect, too. She had black lines encircling her eyes, her straggly-looking hair brushed into a cloud about her and the reddest lips Morgan had ever seen.
Morgan’s mouth fell open and she stared.
“I only serve one gent at a time, lover man,” she said, motioning to Morgan.
Zander let go of her collar, and Morgan swayed at the shove he gave her at the same time. She knew what he was doing there, now. He wasn’t going to take a woman from his camp. He was going to take a woman that gave to any man. He was going to service a harlot, or she was going to service him. Morgan didn’t know anything about it, except that the place where her shirt’s button placket ended at her breast was one huge, ceaseless, pumping ball of hurt.
“You move, and I’ll hunt you down and cut every hair off your head,” Zander leaned to whisper. “You ken me, lad?”
She nodded and sat.
The door closed beside her, releasing a heavy, perfumy sort of odor into the air, and Morgan had to shut her eyes to staunch the instant film of tears. If Zander FitzHugh had a woman, what was it to her? He was a man, and he’d told her women were for the taking. She definitely wasn’t interested enough to care. She didn’t want anything to do with him. He was her ticket to the FitzHugh laird. That’s all he was. That’s all he would ever be.
The sound of laughter was followed by a woman’s murmur of awe. Morgan put her hands to her temples and held them there. The ball of ache in her breast wasn’t easing, either. It was growing into a fire-like agony. She heard the swish of what was probably clothing falling.
The whore should have built her croft better. That way Morgan wouldn’t have to sit on the front stoop and hear everything that was happening. She should have made her walls of mud-brick, rather than straw and peat.